Robins for House / Platform

Platform

Public Education Reform:

I will support Richland School District One and Richland School District Two in their efforts to improve student achievement, parental and community involvement, and to fight against corruption and incompetence within their school districts and school boards.

I will do this by attending school board meetings, organizing and attending community meetings, and continuing to help work to get great school board candidates elected. In the November 2024 election, I personally walked over 40 voting precincts in Richland County door knocking for 6 school board candidates in an effort to improve Richland One school board and Richland Two School Board. I also personally asked Heather Bauer (our current State House Representative) for her help with this endeavor, but unfortunately Bauer refused to help me. Heather Bauer claims that she is a champion for our schools, but when asked to actually "do" something, she failed to act.

I am a go-getter and will WORK for my constituents. I have proven this time and time again with not just political talk, but with actions.

Heather Baur also voted NO on S62 School Choice Education Bill that:

1. restores the Education Scholarship Trust Fund targeting students with the greatest needs (military families, foster children, low-income students, and those with disabilities)

2. removes participation caps for students eligible for $6,000 in education scholarships to the school of their choice

3. allows students to attend schools in a different school district of their choice.

My goal is to introduce comprehensive public school reform laws to address such issues as student behavior, student achievement, Special Education, testing and curriculum, and school board training. I will place more school board oversight capabilities in the hands of the SC Board of Education to reign in rogue incompetent school boards. Parents need to have the ability to enforce common sense policies without having to wait years before another school board election. More oversight is imperative to the success of our schools.

I will also seek an enormous statewide push towards Career and Technical Training education. SC is the 10th largest growing state, and we need a solid trained workforce. As a former educator in the SC public school system for 20 years, I know the issues and how to finally fix them. Joining a super majority in the General Assembly, I am confident that I am the one that can get these reforms actually done and placed into law.

Fiscal Responsibility/Tax Reform:

As a fiscal conservative, I believe the role of government is to protect its citizens, oversee public services, and to create laws in South Carolina that enable our constituents to live in a free and fair society.

I will always support cuts to our ever-increasing bureaucracy and eliminate spending on legislation that inflates and bloats our state budgets.

Cuts in spending should come first from our many bureaucracies that are mismanaging our taxpayer funds. I believe that South Carolina state funded systems are mismanaged, they all over-spend, and they are all too administration top heavy. We must be honest and efficient stewards of the people's money. SC needs its own DOGE team.

In contrast, On February 17, 2025, our current House Representative, Heather Bauer led a crowd of hundreds at our State House to protest the cuts being done by our federal government under the Trump Administration. The protestors carried signs that made it clear that they were not in agreement with what DOGE is doing to cut our bloated federal government. By leading this protest, Heather Bauer has essentially endorsed the massive amount of fraud that is currently being uncovered. This also illustrates that Bauer is not on our side for slashing government waste and abuse.

I will support cutting the state income tax to zero.

I will also sponsor a bill to eliminate property taxes in our state for anyone that owns their own home and that has lived in our state for at least 20 years. With this proposal, I would like to help those homeowners that have lived, worked in a career, and raised a family right here in our state. I believe this policy will enable us to keep multigenerational families in our state to maintain our workforce, build strong communities, and protect our cultural values.

I also will call for SC General Assembly to implement Zero-Based budgeting in all state-funded systems. This type of budgeting is used when states want to constrain spending. Using this approach, government systems must start with a zero budget each year, building their costs each year from scratch, and must justify each and every single expense.

MAHA in SC

Making South Carolina Healthy Again:

I have personally embraced the MAHA movement within my own personal life by reading food labels, eating organic produce and meats as much as possible, staying away from processed foods and seed oils, and limiting eating out in restaurants that use highly processed foods and ingredients.

I pledge to incentivize our restaurants to prioritize using meal ingredients from SC grown farmers, fishermen, and SC ranchers by giving tax incentives. For the health of our citizens, using fresh, organic, locally produced food stuffs is an extremely high priority for me. I will also push for tax incentives for those same businesses who limit the use of seed oils.

In our public schools, I will work tirelessly to improve the mental and physical health of our children. I will do this by limiting screen time in the classroom, bringing back writing and the use of pencil and paper instead of computer keyboards.

I will also incentivize school districts to also use SC grown food products to be served in our children's school cafeterias. In our public schools, outdoor time and physical education will be mandatory. Nutritional courses will also be required for our children starting in elementary schools throughout high school.

Public Safety/Law & Order

The Democrat party has consistently proven that they are the party of ignoring the rule of law and the promotion of violence. From allowing millions of non-US citizens to pour into our country across the northern and southern borders without proper vetting, to calling for vandalism and violent attacks against Tesla dealerships and owners, as well as calling for violence against our Supreme Court judges and other elected officials that do not align to their party, we can assume that anyone who stills runs underneath the Democrat Party banner is in agreement with these tactics.

Our current House Representative Heather Bauer proudly and enthusiastically participated in a Defund the Police protest right here in Columbia, SC in 2020. These violent protests were seen across our country where we watched entire cities burnt to the ground.

This local event turned extremely violent, with vandalism occurring to many of our small businesses and even left over a dozen City of Columbia police officers injured. City of Columbia police cars were also set on fire.

According to crimegrade.org, Richland County's overall crime grade is a D. Richland County has a higher violent crime rate and property crime rate than the national average.

I, unlike Heather Bauer, will always stand firm on the importance of public safety and will always support our law enforcement. Currently District 75 is experiencing an upsurge in car break-ins, home break-ins, and gun shots can be heard at night all across our community.

I will be the State Representative that will work with our local authorities to ensure that they have all resources necessary to fight crime, and to keep repeat offenders off of our streets.

Conservation and Environmental Preservation:

I am a strong believer in maintaining clean air, water, and green spaces in our district, and within our state.

As your representative, I will support all efforts that keep our land, rivers and oceans free of pollutants so that our native flora and fauna can continue to thrive.

I am a current member of the South Carolina Waterfowl Association, Columbia Chapter. This organizations promotes sustaining wildlife populations, and their precious habitats. SCWA also sponsors Camp Woodie, a summer camp in our state for our youth that is one of the nation's leading conservation camp programs.

As an avid fisherman, I will ensure that our marine life is protected so that South Carolinians can continue to fish our waterways and consume their healthy catch for centuries to come.

I will work to make sure that our fish supply along our coastal areas are able to flourish. I will promote programs to manage our lake's aquatic vegetation and monitor water quality to create a healthy ecosystem for our freshwater fish.

In District 75, I will improve our current parks and green spaces, as well as adding even more to our district. I will promote the addition of native trees and native flowers to our neighborhoods and public spaces.

Bringing the Working Class Voice to the SC Statehouse:

I believe that we are in desperate need of quality, service driven candidates to serve in the SC General Assembly. Currently due to the pay for state elected officials (at a little over $10,000), most working residents cannot choose to serve in our General Assembly. Qualified potential candidates cannot afford such a pay decrease while trying to provide for their family. I will support raising the pay to a livable wage in order to encourage teachers, fire-fighters, mechanics, nurses, and other members of our working class to pause their careers and to serve.

As of now, we have retirees, lawyers, and wealthy South Carolinians serving in our General Assembly. They are making great legislation for them, which is great, but working-class voices and concerns are being left behind.

Our current salary system in the General Assembly only encourages and enforces corruption by diminishing the ability of others to participate in the process.

This has to change. With this pay raise, I would also support to add on term limits for representatives and senators.

Supporting Small Businesses:

Small businesses are the bedrock to our economy. I will support all legislative measures that would allow small businesses to thrive in district 75, as well as our state. This means that I would support reforming regulations that hinder small business owners, such as business licensing requirements, and being overtaxed.

I would also support Trump's QBI plan to be implemented in South Carolina. This plan would allow small businesses to take advantage of the same 20% flow through taxable income deduction that mirrors the Federal Plan.

I also understand the need for employees that are educated, trained and are responsible for our small business owners. I intend to increase the supply of workers through public school reform initiatives and a push to technical training in SC high schools. I will focus on technical training for the very industries that make our great state thrive, such as Hospitality and Restaurant management, Real Estate, construction, electrical and plumbing, and insurance sales.

I will also implement courses on how to set up your own LLC with bookkeeping, accounting, and advertising classes so that our next generation of South Carolinians can become successful small business owners too.

It is also imperative that our state legislature stop giving taxpayer giveaways to big corporations. The handouts are fiscally irresponsible and are unfair to small businesses.

Military Support:

Growing up in the small town of Beaufort, SC, I experienced first-hand the impact of the military community. Beaufort is home to not only Paris Island, but also the Marine Corps Air Station and the Beaufort Naval Hospital. As a teacher in Beaufort County Public Schools, many of my students were children of active-duty military members. I have decades of experience supporting these families.

I am fortunate to come from a long line of military service members. Also, my brother graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served in the United States Marine Corps, and my nephew is a graduate of the Citadel.

I fully understand the impact that Fort Jackson has on House District 75. Our military families send their children to our schools. Our military families work and shop in our local businesses and bring a strong sense of patriotism with them that is immeasurable.

Fort Jackson has a $4.7 billion economic impact within our community and state. Fort Jackson, the SC National Guard, McEntire Joint National Guard Base, Department of Defense Contractors, the US Army Reserve, military retirees, and veterans all contribute to over $6.6 billion to our state's economy. Their presence is of extreme importance, and I will always be a voice of unwavering support for them.

As your representative for House District 75, I pledge to be an active partner, advocate, and supporter of our military personnel. I will do my part to assure active-duty men and women, as well as our veterans, that their needs are of the utmost importance to me.

Our Pets:

As an avid animal lover, I will be a strong advocate for our beloved pets. If elected, I pledge to increase funding for our local animal shelters to include funding for increased inhouse employees as well as animal catchers to ensure the safety of our animals and our communities. This includes funding to catch and then spay/neuter feral cats to reduce community feral cat colonies.

I will also increase funding to update our animal shelters to include large fenced in outdoor spaces and to ensure building exteriors become more inviting to the public.

I will sponsor a bill to include:

1. a ban on county pet licensing fees

2. stricter guidelines for keeping our animals secured outdoors

3. introduce policies to place limits on statewide breeders so that our animal shelters are not overrun

4. provide pet owners state tax incentives for up to two pets adopted from a shelter

5. ban kill shelters

6. employ at least 1 licensed pet trainer per shelter to work solely on all animals to ensure a smooth transition into new homes

7. Zero tolerance for dog fighting- mandate a state task force soley dedicated to finding (using modern technology such as drones) and arresting those involved in dog fighting. This task force will be created under SLED.

Follow my campaign on Facebook at: Tracy Robins for Richland